Henry Harley Arnold

Henry Harley Arnold 1886-1950, American general, chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces (1942-46), known as "Hap" Arnold, B. Gladwyne, Pa., grad. West Point, 1907. Assigned (1911) to the aviation division of the Signal Corps, Arnold later served almost entirely with the air arm. He was chief of the Air Corps from 1938 to 1940, when he became deputy chief of staff for the air. Chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces throughout World War II, Arnold was made (1944) general of the army and, after the creation of the air force as a separate department, was made (June, 1949) general of the air force; both of these were five-star ranks. He wrote a number of books, several of them with I. C. Eaker.

Bibliography: See His autobiography, Global Mission (1949, repr. 1972); biography by F. O. Dupre (1972).

Arnold, Henry Harley ”Hap” (1886–1950) aviation pioneer and general, born in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. Arnold was a natural flier and pioneer. As chief of the Army Air Force, he oversaw expansion of Army Air Forces in World War II. He joined the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1942, and was promoted to four-star general in 1943 and to five-star general of the army in 1944. He was made the first general of the Air Force by special Act of Congress in 1949. As five-star general of the Army, he directed B-29 operations of the Twentieth Air Force from his Pentagon office, culminating in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945). Arnold's greatest contribution was in orchestrating the creation of the world's largest air force and leading it to victory. Under his aegis in World War II the Army Air Forces grew from 22,000 men and 3,900 aircraft to 2.5 million personnel and 63,715 planes arrayed in 243 combat groups.